HoneyBerry
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Glow Worm

This glow worm picture was included with an educational writing about luminescence, in my physics newsletter. (I have a small nerdy side.) It was interesting to read about this subject and the glow worm made it even more interesting for me.
image.jpg
This image is from Wikimefia.org

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applestar
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Oh cool! So is this a firefly nymph?

"Glow worm" reminded me of James and the Giant Peach :()

HoneyBerry
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Glow worms and fireflies are both insects, but not the same insect, so the answer to your question is no. The bioluminescence is similar for both insects, however. I was reading about how light bulbs work when I ran across the glow worm picture. It's too much to try to explain here, and I am not an expert on the subject of bioluminescence or glow worms or fireflies. Nature is so amazing. Apparently, the glow worm is 100% efficient. Lightbulbs are much less efficient than glow worms. It is so interesting. I tried to attach the newsletter but it is in email format rather than a link, so my efforts were unsuccessful. When I googled 'glow worm' I found some exotic tourist sites featuring glow worm caves. I think they are man made, but evenso, how cool that would be to see.

Asica
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Very cool. But I maybe say thing different things, if I saw this in my garden at night. Lol
In this picture, this looks huge.

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rainbowgardener
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Apparently the bioluminescence gene is similar in a number of species and is pretty readily transferable (in the lab). So the gene splicing engineers are busy creating all kinds of glow in the dark creatures:

plants with bioluminescence genes from bacteria inserted:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -LAMP.html

cats with bioluminescence genes from jellyfish inserted:

https://www.bu.edu/synapse/2012/02/29/gl ... dark-cats/

Image

sheep with jellyfish bioluminescence genes:

https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles ... -video.htm

also mice, fish, and monkeys.... and yes, if they can do it to monkeys, they could make glow in the dark people as well.....

In the future we may have street trees that double as street lamps at night and bioluminescent light bulbs (which as Bird Lover says, would be way more energy efficient than anything we have now and produce less CO2.

https://bioluminescent.weebly.com/the-connection.html

Asica
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Wow this is some crazy science. I can just imagine those trees in winter.

HoneyBerry
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I don't like all that crazy science. I think that nature knows what's best. Humans just make a mess of things.

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rainbowgardener
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Humans have indeed made a huge mess of things.

But we are past the point where we can back off and let Nature take care of herself. 7.3 billion people in the world and more all the time. (Go here https://www.census.gov/popclock/world to watch the digits spin on the population clock!) And all this infra structure and economies that will keep churning out cars and whatnot until something is done.

I used to live on a five acre property in the city, just a few miles from downtown. Half of it was a little pocket of woods. When I first visited the property (it was the grounds of my Quaker Meeting where eventually I became resident caretaker), the woods was fairly healthy, with a dense tree canopy and lots of native wildflowers. But it already had Japanese honeysuckle shrubs, English ivy, vinca and other invasives in it. Over the years, the invasives just took over more and more. The wildflowers were getting smothered, trees were falling (which is natural in a woods, with age and storms), but not being replaced, because the honeysuckle shaded out the seedlings. So there were more and more holes in the canopy and then sun loving weeds would start to come in. We finally decided that just leaving our little patch of woods alone was not good enough and have been working hard to save the little patch of woods. But it is a lot of work and has to be kept up all the time. If we had just left it alone, in a very few more years it would not have been a woods at all, just a honeysuckle/ivy patch.

My point being, we cannot afford to turn away from science at this point, because we will need a lot of knowledge and data to find ways to deal with what we have done. We just need to reform how we do science, so that the technique of science is infused with judgement, morality, ethics, and a proper respect for unintended consequences and the complexity of natural systems. We need to develop and distribute appropriate technologies.

Here's some samples:

https://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3287 ... e-in-chile indigenous solar engineers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p038cs3 ... w_facebook make your own clay pot stove and then use the heat from the stove to generate power

https://offgridquest.com/energy/wind-pow ... ll-project a DIY windmill to generate electricity, made from snow shovels

https://collectivelyconscious.net/articl ... -articles3 an old VW beetle retrofitted with solar and wind power

https://offgridquest.com/energy/wind-pow ... ould-gener rooftop wind turbines

https://www.collective-evolution.com/201 ... sun-2000x/ solar collector that collects and concentrates solar energy

and this:

Image

the sphere is on dual axis, tracks the sun, collects and concentrates solar energy. It is so efficient it can even generate energy from moon light!

the zoo in Cincinnati has parking lots that are covered with solar panels. Keeps the cars cooler by shading them and generates power

Image

there are roadways with solar panels in them, there is lots of bicycle powered stuff including water pumps, there are billboards that function as solar and water collectors, etc etc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropria ... evelopment

We need good science for all this stuff....

HoneyBerry
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Yes, science does have good things to offer us. Thank you for all the links. I will look at them all later today.
There is a huge housing development near me. The demolition includes removal of invasive plants. The new landscaping is all about native plants. They do a nice job, but the land was so much nicer before they clear cut it to remove the trees. I loved those treed hillsides. They are now barren.

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PunkRotten
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Bioluminescent mushrooms are pretty cool too. Been thinking about growing them lately.



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